I recently saw Up the Down Staircase again after many years and it was appropriate to watch just before school started. The movie is about a new teacher, Sylvia Barrett, who is teaching classic literature at Calvin Coolidge High School in New York City. She quickly gets frustrated by the bureaucracy of the school, students who don’t care and colleagues who are incompetent. Barrett decides to leave the school, but then finds out that she has touch more lives that she realized.

I love the title of the movie. It is based on a rule at the school – some staircases are for going up and some for down. A student in Barrett’s class takes the wrong staircase and is punished for it. This movie was based on the novel of the same name and I am looking forward to reading it.

Sylvia Barrett is played by Sandy Dennis. The high school students in the film look a little old for the parts (no need for acne treatments here). Bud Cort, of Harold and Maude fame, has an uncredited role in the film.